Twenty-Eight Smelters Agree to Suspend Tin Exports

Pangkalpinang, Bangka Belitung - Some 28 tin smelters in Bangka Belitung province have agreed to suspend their tin exports to press the global market to raise tin price, a spokesman said. "The suspension of tin exports is designed to raise the price of tin to a fair level of US$23,000 per ton," Chairman of the Indonesian Tin Association (ITA) Hidayat Arsani said here on Wednesday. He said the agreement was reached at a coordination meeting among Bangka Belitung Governor Eko Maulana Ali, the association, the president director of state tin mining company PT Timah Tbk and 28 president directors of tin smelters earlier in the day. "Morally, they have agreed to suspend tin exports due to the absence of government policy banning tin exports," he said. He said the present tin price in the international market was no longer relevant and in proportion to the high production cost, thereby causing tin smelters to suffer losses. "We are grateful to tin smelters for their participation in the effort to raise tin price in the international market," he said. Meanwhile, ITA Executive Chairman Rudy Irawan said Bangka Belitung was the main supplier of tin to the world market. "Bangka Belitung currently supplies 80 percent of the global tin needs and Indonesia is among the four countries having the largest tin deposits in the world besides China, Latin America and Peru," he said. He said Indonesia was the only tin exporter in the world, supplying nearly 80 percent of the global tin needs. "Ironically, although Indonesia is the largest tin exporter in the world, it is speculators and not Indonesia that control the global tin price," he said. The tin speculators could reduce the world price of tin to the lowest possible level and raise it to the highest possible level any time at the expense of Indonesia, Bangka Belitung in particular, he said. *